Monday, April 23, 2012

How to Make Galumpkis aka Stuffed Cabbage Rolls

Narrated by my brother Tim (while he cooks)

I have mentioned before that my brother has referred to himself as "a damn fine cook". These cabbage rolls are one of his many specialties. I decided to truly get the Tim "cooking experience" you needed to hear him describe his methods first hand, so this past weekend Bubba and I went to visit and convinced Tim that he had to do a guest post and make his famous cabbage rolls for us. Bubba as usual loved them at first taste and was extremely happy to see the leftovers at lunch today. (Uncle Tim made us a whole pan of them to bring home for Daddy since he was unable to come with us). Without further ado, I will turn the blog post over to the chef:

Ok here's what you'll need to make Galumpkis:

Ingredients:

Rice:

4 cups of water

2 cups dry rice

Sauces A and B (sauce B becomes filler, henceforth called "stuff"):

Sauce A:

(2) 28 oz cans crushed tomatoes

5-ish cloves of garlic

(know your audience, this is a garlic heavy crowd)

1 tablespoon of sugar

2 tablespoons of white wine vinegar

Sauce B:

1 onion

5-ish cloves of garlic

(1) 6oz can of tomato paste

Also:

2 eggs

1/2 cup red wine

1 head of cabbage

1 package ground turkey (technically, tri-mix of veal, pork and beef, but whatever you have works, it's a depression era dish, use squirrel if it's on sale)

Put 4 cups of water in a pot with the 2 cups of dry rice, heat to boiling then turn down to simmer and cook for 20 minutes or until the water is absorbed and rice is cooked.
I always say, "You aren't watching the rice: if you are watching the rice you are doing something wrong because you are supposed to be doing other things... like cooking the rest of the stuff. Pour yourself a glass of wine then putz around while the rice cooks."

Cut the onions and garlic.

Put the 2 cans of crushed tomatoes in a oiled (maybe a tablespoon, or so you tell them) sauce pan heated to medium and add half the garlic to it. (Sauce A)
In another pan cook the onions at medium till soft then add the rest of the garlic to the onions. (Sauce B)
Keep stirring them both 'cause one explodes and the other one burns if you don't.

After about the time it takes you to open a tomato paste can, add the tomato paste to the onions. (Sauce B)

Next, fill the empty can of tomato paste with red wine and add that to the onions and tomato paste.

Then stir like the dickens.

After about 2 minutes take Sauce A (on the left) off the heat, add the sugar and white wine vinegar and stir.

Take 1 cup of the crushed tomato mixture (Sauce A) and add it into the onion tomato paste mess (Sauce B). Use a ladle, don't stick plastic measuring cups in hot tomato sauce. Besides, it's an estimate. Stir, then take off the heat.

Take everything off the heat and let it cool while you work on the rest.

Fill a large pot with water and a sprinkle of salt. If the water tastes funny you've added too much salt, or you have bad water.

Heat to boiling.

While waiting for it to boil, dump the cooked rice into a large bowl and let it cool a bit, then add the tomato paste and onion mixture (Sauce B). Stir.

While you wait, "gore" the cabbage.

Bubba is having his Cheerios snack while we cook.

Add the meat (raw) and two eggs to the rice and Sauce B mixture.

Stir.

Boiling the cabbage:

After about five minutes, leaves can just be peeled off one at a time. Use tongs, peel gently, and thwack them on a cutting board or somewhere.

Cut off the hard chewy bit of the cabbage.

Then what you do depends on how fancy you need to be. So, fancy is rolling them, putting a spoonful of meat/rice on the leaf.

Then a dollop of sauce.

Then roll them somehow (Don't ask me, this is where it all falls apart)

Keep rolling ad nauseum

Then when you get tired of that, do it the lazy way. Put some sauce in the bottom of the pan, a couple leaves,

then spread as much meat as you can on top of that,

a bit of sauce,

More leaves, meat and sauce, ideally using them all up now. Sometimes you may have to make a THIRD pan, and MORE sauce (Sauce A) (this was one of those times)

There you go. Lazy and Fancy. (left and right respectively)

Oh yeah, throw more sauce (Sauce A) on the top. People like the sauce, there's never enough.

*There may be mention of waiting in this description. It's bollocks, when one thing's going, that's when you wash up, chuck things out, check the heat, recheck the heat, stir, yell at people to stop wiping the stove because it's futile, and maybe have a sip of wine and think about sitting down, before having to stir again.